Term given to the mystery surrounding Tarvu's great swim north with Oobu the holy octopus, after Tarvu fled the scene of his attempted execution in Baalb.

Tarvu followed Oobu for several months (some say over a year) as they swam in completely the wrong direction (they were meant to go west) all the way up to the North Pole.

The phrase, 'Bakersfield Conundrum,' refers to the theologian and Tarvuist thinker, Iain Bakersfield, (1890-1990) who first questioned Tarvu's “sanity” (Bakersfield's words, quoted in his book, 'Tarvu's Second Swim,' Chadwick Press, 1961) for swimming the wrong way for such a long period of time, when he must have known that he was making a grave mistake. “After all,” reminds Bakersfield, ”Was Tarvu not all-knowing?”.

In 1963, Gunter Hasse, the very vocal, Viennese Priestmunty, famously posited that Tarvu swam in the wrong direction on purpose in order to prove - to nay sayers later on - that he was as human as they were - i.e that he was capable of making errors of judgement.

Hasse's argument fired much debate: why then, said many (including, most prominently Prof. Marcel Camillard in his treatise 'Pourquoi Non? Pourquoi Tarvu?' Paris Central Presse, 1967), should Tarvu want to admit to making mistakes after Tarvu had revealed himself as the Lord God.

We may never know the real reason/reasons as to why Tarvu followed Oobu for such a long time, in freezing waters, all the while going the wrong way. There is also the question as to whether Tarvu 'erased' Oobu's memory along the route, so as to save the octopus from the embarrassment of being wrong, or in order to prevent Oobu from announcing that Tarvu was the Lord to passing seal-lions (considered 'gossips').

There is even a suggestion (a completely unfoundered claim made by anti-Tarvuist, T.P.K. Henson) that Tarvu impregnated Oobu's sister Ibble-Nency during the swim, and went to the North Pole, so as to avoid his fatherly duties.

As can be seen, this is a very lively matter for debate, further complicated by Iain Bakersfield's shocking announcement on his deathbed, that he had had a lifelong, direct, private 'thought-line' to Tarvu, and that Tarvu had personally told him that the reason he had swum to the North Pole, was so that he could 'set a new world record'.